Mas from Latina

Search form

Latino Baseball Players Consider 2011 All-Star Game Boycott in AZ

What started as a low rumble for Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has become a loud roar as immigrant's rights organizations, fans and players alike call on the league to reconsider playing the 2011 All-Star game in Phoenix, Arizona due to the passage of controversial SB 1070. Protests at NY Mets' Citifield, Yankee Stadium, Tampa Bay's Tropicana field and most recently the National's field in Washington DC have garnered national attention for a proposed boycott of the 2011 All-Star game unless Selig moves the event.

And with 27% of MLB players of Latin descent, you can bet it's been a hot button topic among players as well. Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who maintains dual citizenship in his native Venezuela as well as the U.S., spoke passionately about SB 1070 after it was passed in April 2010: "Nobody sees those guys getting up at 4 a.m. to go to work on the farm, picking all kinds of stuff and leaving at 6 o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody complains about that. Leave those guys alone. Help them...They cannot live without us (immigrants). Put it that way. They're workaholics. And this country can't survive without them."

Perennial All Star St. Louis Cardinal Albert Pujols said, "I'm opposed to it. How are you going to tell me that, me being Hispanic, if you stop me and I don't have my ID, you're going to arrest me? That can't be."

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo, of Mexican descent, told the Arizona Republic point blank: "If the game is in Arizona, I will totally boycott." Clearly passions are running high around this issue.

At the Latino Sports MVP Awardsyesterday we got a chance to chat with Yankees starting pitcher Javier Vasquez about the law and the planned 2011 Arizona All-Star game. Here's what he had to say: